Sales people and executives cultivate contacts throughout their careers. These contacts may provide an advantage over another individual based on how strongly connected the person may be. The value of the contact is also impacted by the position/title of the contact and the size of the organization by whom the contact is employed.
Most mobile devices (mobile phones, smartphones, tablets) today have a contact list that is either populated by the device owner or imported via another process. These contact lists are sometimes synchronized on the mobile device with another contact list to which the user has access. These contact lists may also be built from a common list of contacts and then added to by the user.
One of the problems is that it is difficult to measure how ‘well connected’ an individual is. This would be impacted by many factors for example, but not limited to, the number of contacts the individual has, the position/title of the contacts, the size of the organization that the contact currently belongs to and how strong the individual's relationship with the contact is. Another problem is that it is difficult to compare the strength of connections (or how ‘well connected’) one individual may have versus another individual.
One of the problems with the current systems is that they do not allow other users to determine who might have a specific contact. These contacts may be shared one-on-one but they are not available as a whole. Nor do current systems indicate how strong each contact is. There is no indication if the contact in the list has ever been contacted or how the contact has been communicated with. Often people will enter information for a contact that they never use. There is no indication if the contact in the list is still an active contact or if it is an old contact no longer used.
Another existing problem with the current systems is that they do not allow a common search functionality to be available. They may allow an individual to see who other individuals' contacts are, but they do not allow for searching on a contact to see whose list they may be in. Another problem with the current systems is that they do not indicate how often the user communicates with the contact in their mobile contact list. There is no indication if the contact is one that is frequently used or very rarely.
Another problem with the current systems is that there is not a method for determining a user's contacts without a contact list. If a user is in frequent contact with someone but has not added them to their contact list then there is no method to determine that the user has that person as a known contact.
Another existing problem with the current systems is that if the frequently contacted person is not in the contact list then the information for that person is harder to share.
Another problem with existing systems is that they do not indicate how strong a relationship each contact has when viewed across an entire organization.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations thereto are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.